Don’t Dismiss Her Pain.

(ThySistas.com) We know how to address men and are becoming more capable of holding them accountable for the negativity we receive. Disrespect, body shaming, unrealistic expectations, shaming us in our motherhood, and the list could go on…we are telling men this is not allowed. This is positive as we must expect more from our partners, fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins and friends. The question is when do we demand this from each other? It may be difficult for some women to admit, but our greatest hater is another woman. The person that can shame us to breaking points unbelievable is another woman, and it often comes from the women closest to us. We need to demand that the women in our life don’t dismiss our pain for any reason.

Sometimes thesuper woman mentality isn’t just perpetuated by men…it is embedded and judged by women. As women it is important that we take a serious look at self before we damage our sister circles. When we are waiting on promotions, finding love, or even having kids it’s important that we don’t allow envy to grow in the heart. This is not far fetched at all. When your sister tells you her good news are you able to celebrate her without making her moment about you? When you sister is going through a traumatic experience do you blow her off because you want her to focus on you? When she tells you about what’s going on with her do you sound completely uninterested until its time to talk about you? Is you sister in physical pain but you could care less because she ought not complain?

If you are contributing to the negativity in any of these scenarios, or one’s like it, you need to check you heart towards your sister(s). You are not going to want her or any woman you trust to treat you in this manner. If you are on the receiving end of this abuse you have to speak up, and let it be known that though you love your sister you will not tolerate this…you don’t deserve to be mistreated. Envy and jealousy will cause you to dismiss the pain of a woman you claim to love. That isn’t support. When men do this, we jump on it or begin to find ways to address it. Well, no one should be allowed to mistreat you especially another woman.

I once denied that I noticed the ugly we do to each other. I tried to pass it off as women just giving each other tough love and holding each other accountable to a higher standard. Then my father died…some of the women that I thought would be there were the most insensitive. It wasn’t a man that questioned my mental state because I was still mourning, as I was approaching his one-year death anniversary, it was a woman in my close circle. It wasn’t a man that made every traumatic moment I was facing regarding my dad about them…it was one of my sisters. When pregnant with my first child it wasn’t a man that humiliated me making fun of my stomach once I was showing…it was someone that called me sister.

Pregnant with my 2nd child I’ve been experiencing a lot of physical pain and it hasn’t been men that tried to make me feel ungrateful for saying I was in pain…it was women that call me sister. When I sat down to think about it…my pain, experiences, sexual assaults, and challenges had been most dismissed by women. Ironically it was brothers that kept me encourage in larger numbers.

As women, and sisters, we must do better by each other. We need to be supportive and uplifting of one another. We should be able to rejoice when our sister is winning and share in HER moment knowing she will do the same when our time comes. Our sister should be able to confide in us how they feel about life, marriage, children, work, pain, and internal matters without feeling we are blowing them off or making light of their issue. Hypocrisy never built anything positive. If we demand men not to dismiss our truth…it should be automatically understood that we would not dismiss each other.